from the again-and-again-and-again dept

We've already seen a bunch of nearly identical studies, but it's worth pointing out that there's yet another study coming out this week that says that those involved in file sharing also tend to be the best customers of the entertainment industry. Now, it's worth taking the study with at least some grains of salt, given that it was funded by Vuze, a company trying to sell licensed videos via BitTorrent and has had trouble getting content companies to sign on. However, given how many other studies have said the same thing, can we finally put to rest the idea that those who file share "aren't customers" as many in the entertainment industry insist? They do tend to be customers, and frequent ones as multiple studies have now shown. The issue is just that they also file share, meaning many file share, in part, to find out what's worth buying. So the focus should be (once again) on giving them reasons to buy rather than trying to stomp out file sharing.

from the useful-background-info... dept

A couple years ago, we mentioned an interesting story about "book piracy" in the early 18th century, which (according to the article we linked to) the term "piracy" was first used in reference to copying the creative works of another in 1701, concerning a a poem by Daniel Defoe (it's worth noting, as an aside, that even in this first case of "piracy" Defoe wasn't bothered by the practice, even encouraging them to try to sell their copies "if they please," -- he just wanted to make sure they copied the poem accurately). Now, via Freakonomics, we're pointed to a recent study by K. Matthew Dames on the history of the word "piracy," both for high seas privateering and when it comes to copying content. This seems to be a small part of a larger project by Dames, who says his later research will help show why the use of the term "piracy" when it comes to copyright is inaccurate, and is misused by the entertainment industry to get laws repeatedly passed in their favor without a basis in reason. I'm definitely looking forward that later study, but as a starter, this history of the term piracy, is certainly a worthwhile read.

"This has got to be one of the most tone-deaf and cynically opportunistic PR pitches I've seen for quite some time. It's one thing to figuratively equate piracy with making digital copies of software, music, movies, or books. We can debate endlessly whether such actions are truly stealing or not. But that's not the point. It's that to literally and deliberately equate the two in the wake of pirates taking a ship's crew hostage and the US Navy subsequently killing three of the attackers...Well, words fail me."

from the and-then-you-see-the-opportunities dept

We've had a ton of people submitting this, so figured a quick writeup is in order. Jason Holtman, the director of business development and legal affairs for Valve, was speaking a video game conference, when he noted: "Pirates are underserved customers." This is a point that plenty of folks have been making for a while, but having an exec at a company like Valve make it is important. But, even more important was his next sentence:

"When you think about it that way, you think, 'Oh my gosh, I can do some interesting things and make some interesting money off of it.'"

This past weekend at the MidemNet conference (on which I'll be writing much more), I heard a few music industry folks say something at least somewhat similar to the first part of the comment: talking about how they had to learn to bring "pirates" back into being legitimate customers. But, then they missed that second part. As one attendee said, the music industry execs kept freaking out about how much money they will lose, while ignoring how much money there is to be made.

from the learn-your-history dept

Since the original meaning and purpose of intellectual property laws has become so distorted these days, it is quite useful to look back at the history of such things and why they were put in place. That's why we often talk about the debates on intellectual property held by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. It's why we bring up things like the problem of patent sharks in the nineteenth century. The more you look, the more you realize that many of the big "problems" people insist are happening today in the intellectual property world really aren't all that different than things that happened in the past.

William Patry has been posting a few interesting posts lately on historical views of copyright -- but even more interesting is an article in Toronto's Globe and Mail, where the author discusses the first known case of someone copying another's writings being referred to as a "pirate." It was apparently first used in 1701 to describe people who had copied a poem by Daniel Defoe, called "The True-Born Englishman" in order to sell it themselves. The most interesting part: Defoe actually learned how to take advantage of the situation, rather than whining about it. If only today's copyright holders could learn what Defoe figured out 300 years ago.

It is true that Defoe was upset... but not at people copying and making money off of his work. He was upset that they made mistakes in copying his poem. He published a corrected version, noting:

"I should have been concerned at its being printed again and again by pirates, as they call them, and paragraph-men; but would that they do it justice and print it true according to the copy, they are welcome to sell it for a penny if they please."

Defoe quickly realized that obscurity was a much bigger threat than "piracy" and by encouraging these "pirates" to sell copies of his work, it built up his own reputation and allowed him to go around the cumbersome publishing process of the time. The rest of Defoe's career was then built off of his name recognition since that poem was so widely distributed, allowing him the ability to make much more money off of future works. In other words, even the original "victim" of "piracy" quickly recognized how it could be used to his advantage, rather than worrying that it was a threat.